What Gaza needs now | New Yorker

On May 15, we were at home in Syracuse, New York, where my wife Maram and I recorded her family in the northern Northern California city of Beit Lahia, where we both grew up. They were eating a side dish of pure white rice. “It’s the only type of food we’ve had in a few weeks,” said Uncle Jalair’s father. On a normal day, similar amounts of rice will feed about two people, however, within 75 days, Israel does not allow any food to be added to Gaza. The meal must support Malam’s parents and her four adult siblings. I could see some plates nearby and a bowl. “They don’t have anything,” Uncle Jalair said. “We made ourselves imagine we would have salad when we chewed the rice, as well as some chicken and pickles.”

Usually this has hardly gotten worse over the past nineteen months. That night, one of my relatives called me and said that the explosion in northern Gaza sounded like the end of the world. My relatives could hear screams and then hear more explosions. Meanwhile, my friend Sabir has lived in southern Gaza since October 2023 and missed about 10 calls because his phone has been charging. “I feel panic,” he told me. I know this feeling because I experience it whenever my relatives call me from Gaza. When Sabir calls back, he learns that air attacks in his family home killed his four-year-old nephew and his five-year-old niece. (The IDF spokesman said the IDF was not aware of the strike. When asked about the bombings in my relatives and neighbors of the House of Representatives, the spokesman said the IDF had already made a strike on the “terrorist infrastructure” but was not aware of the subsequent bombings.)

According to Gaza’s health officials, the final death toll on May 15 was 143, with the total reaching more than 530,000 since October 7. I can usually depend on how severely my loved ones are affected. This time, the father of a former colleague and friend was the deceased. Many families, including some of my relatives, were forced to flee south.

About a week later, Israel finally allowed about a hundred trucks to enter Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on X that since October 7, Israel has sent 9,000 aid trucks into Gaza. In fact, most of the aid comes from the international community, not Israel. But even if Netanyahu’s numbers are correct, there are still fewer than 2,000 trucks a day, which is lower than what humanitarian groups call hungry Gazans needed. Before October 7, hundreds of trucks brought various goods to Gaza every day. Since then, most of the cattle in Gaza have been killed and most of its farmland has been damaged or destroyed.

Then, composed of private security contractors and supported by the United States and Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began distributing food in southern and central Gaza. As the GHF bypassed other aid organizations and carried out Kurdish organizations with the Israeli military, many international communities, including the United Nations, condemned and boycotted these efforts. Earlier, on CNN, the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, “If you really care about feeding people, why do you care about which truck brings it there?” I couldn’t help asking myself if the ambassador and Israel really care about feeding people, why would Israel help in the first place? Now, Gaza people in the north are forced to flee to death and to eat.

The next time Malam and I called our family, we heard more bad news. My family lived on flour and white rice during the last ceasefire in January 2025. Sometimes they only eat one meal a day. My sister Aya told me that the flour became dirty, so she wore a mask when she made the bread. But it tastes even worse than the smell.

The husband of one of my sisters told me that two nephews, Abdullah and Mostafa, recently set out for Beit Lahia with their friend Fadi. Israel has previously issued evacuation orders to most parts of northern Gaza. My brother said that when the Israeli Quadcopter dropped the bomb and killed him, Abdullah, 24, gathered mint and zucchini in their backyard. Another bomb killed 16-year-old Fadi. Mostafa, twenty-one, survived telling stories only because he walked into his neighbor’s house and the third bomb knocked him down, almost cutting his legs. When he woke up, he dragged himself out of the ruins and climbed to the al-Tayyeb wedding hall, where I got married eleven years ago. Eventually, bystanders took him to Al-Shifa Hospital. (The IDF once again stated that it destroyed the “terror infrastructure” that day.)

When we reached Malam’s mother, whom I called Aunt Iman, she looked tired and thin. She is now in Gaza City, living in a tent on the streets of siblings in Malam. We can hear digging in the background. She told us: “Your Uncle Jalair is hammering on the asphalt.” I was shocked when she explained why: they were burning it to cook food. “We used up wood and paper,” said Aunt Eman. “The asphalt contains oil.” Her skin looked dark from exposure to heat and soot.

I asked her if she had received any food recently. “Nothing,” she told me.

“It’s not even the Humanitarian Foundation of Gaza?”

“It’s okay,” she said.

Soon, Palestinians began to be killed near the GHF aid distribution site. On May 27, thousands of hungry people attacked a site like this in Rafa near the southern border between Gaza and Egypt, which evacuated GHF workers. Israeli soldiers and tanks were stationed nearby and opened fire. A few days later, on June 1, my neighbor Saleem al-Ghandour told me that he had seen Israeli troops open fire again at help seekers, this time at another aid site in the Netzarim corridor. “It looks like all Gaza is there,” he told me. “Diet is very close to us due to the strong shelling around us and the gunshots of Israeli soldiers.” He said no one received food that day.

Videos of the consequences began to appear online. I met one with another neighbor, one, a fifty-five-year-old father, five named Mohammad Salem, on the hospital bed. In the video, he describes how Israeli troops still shoot help seekers near Rafa on the morning of June 1. “If there was any food in my tent, I would never go to Rafa.” “But I have two babies, who were born during the war.” When I called him in the hospital, he told me that he was recovering from bullet injuries.

A twenty-four-year-old with a law degree who asked me not to use his full name, wrote to me on social media that he had witnessed gunfire in Rafa. He later told me by phone: “It comes from more than one direction.” He arrived at the distribution location at the age of 6. yes. He said the crowd was so large that not everyone could land on the ground and many were shot dead. However, some of his fellow countrymen were so desperate that they still wanted to move towards the distribution center and look for food.

Over the past two weeks, Gaza authorities and medical staff have reported that dozens of Palestinians were killed and more injured at the GHF site. A spokesperson for the foundation proposed how to report the May 27 incident, but did not elaborate further. “IDF troops fired warnings in areas outside the compound,” an IDF spokesman said. Regarding the June 1 incident, the IDF told the New Yorker It “had no fire on civilians near or inside the humanitarian allocation site,” but added that about a kilometer away, “warned the shooting to fire at several suspects advancing towards the troops.” It did not specify whether this refers to the location in Rafa or the website in the Negarim corridor.

As I read the news and watch videos of the murdered aiders, I think of some of the Israeli leaders’ views on the future of Gaza. In November 2024, Brigadier General Itzik Cohen said his unit would not provide humanitarian assistance to the northernmost part of Gaza, because according to him, there are no more people in the region. “No one went back to the northern region,” Cohen said. (The IDF later distanced himself from his remarks but appointed him as head of the Operations Bureau and announced he was being promoted.) The second month, Moshe Yaalon, the decorated former defense minister, accused Israel of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza. Recently, Israel’s far-right national security minister Itama Ben-Gvir said: “The only aid to enter Gaza should be voluntary immigration.” Its culture minister Miki Zohar talked about annexing the land there unless Hamas Cedes has powered and released its remaining hostages. Recent polls show that most Jewish Israelis support the deportation of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

I am concerned about the latest upgrades in Israel and the GHF’s ​​aid allocation method for these purposes. James Elder UNICEF The spokesman said that if only aid hubs are provided in southern Gaza, they would force Gaza people to choose between displacement and death. “Humanitarian aid should not be used as a bargaining chip,” Elder told reporters in Geneva. To get to the GHF distribution center, my family in Gaza may have to walk 7 miles to the Netzarim corridor or thirty miles to Rafah, after weeks of eating. How will they bring the supplies back? In order for the efforts of GHF to be called humanitarians, they need to reach every city, town and refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. They need to provide nutritious foods to mothers, children and patients every day. They need to stay away from any soldiers and weapons.